Cathy Weber  Cathy Weber grew up in the Midwestern U.S., studied at the Herron School of Art  and Indiana University, and later completed a formal painting apprenticeship in Mexico City. In 1981 she moved to Dillon, Montana, where she maintains a studio in the historic downtown. Though Weber executes the bulk of her work in watercolor, she is skilled at working in a variety of media.  Lately, she is feeling increased urgency to make things of beauty in response to war, injustice, greed and violence.  Making images of common simple objects gives her comfort and hope for weathering the human condition. 

I am a visual artist living and working in Dillon, Montana. I am a gardener, carpenter, cyclist, skier, feminist, civil libertarian and mom; but am most steadily compelled in my daily life by a need to make visual manifestations of my view of the world. In that context, much of my work is done in the service of beauty.

01.041  Purple Columbines

I love the possibilities inherent in every item among the tools and supplies in my studio.  Paper, paint, pencils, board, glue, ink, thread and  fabric are all pregnant with the potential to express or inform a visual or conceptual notion.   I can't recall ever being without several ideas begging to be pursued.  There is always an object I would like to explore by painting, a story that bears telling or a technique whose manipulation might yield something that interests me.

An exploration of book arts, for example, has led me to the discovery of the luminosity of watercolors on skin parchment.  It has fascinated me with the secrets hidden between the bindings of artist's books and the tools of that trade have suggested endless structural possibilities.  Playing around with elements from books led, quite naturally, to an interest in old maps.  That gets me thinking about the notion of a visual mapping of human emotional experience... there is no end in sight.

I am of the opinion that the details of an artist’s personal life and experience are relevant only in so far as they are clearly communicated through her work. Even then, that communication is most powerful when the artist’s expression speaks to the human condition of the viewer in a way that elicits a personal emotional response. I hope to translate my own experience and world view into a series of images in which the viewers can recognize and honor themselves.